Men Scale Fence To Sneak Into Heinz Field

By Joe Mandak ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Three men apparently climbed on one another to scale a fence at Heinz Field and were arrested for trespassing, police said.

The men told police they sneaked into the Pittsburgh Steelers’ home stadium Sunday morning because one of them had lost a wallet, Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard said. But one of the men, Neville Noshir Medhora, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the three had attended a wedding at the stadium the night before and weren’t allowed on the field, so they sneaked back the next morning to take some pictures.

“We thought we could slip in and slip out really quick,’’ Medhora told the newspaper, adding that he plans to write a letter of apology to the Steelers. “We thought maybe an old man with a flashlight would come after us, but it was the police. We completely underestimated the situation and didn’t mean to cause any trouble.’’

Richard said the official police report does not reflect that the men told police anything about the wedding or taking pictures, only that one of them had lost a wallet. They were arrested around 6:45 a.m.

Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett confirmed that a wedding was held at the stadium’s banquet facility on Saturday, but said he has no way to confirm whether the men were in attendance.

Medhora, 27, of Austin, Texas; Adil Minocherhomjee, 22, of La Jolla, Calif.; and Shazad Mehta, 28, of Elmhurst, Ill., were released on unsecured bond. They were due in city court Thursday to face charges of criminal trespass and conspiracy.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate telephone numbers for Minocherhomjee and Mehta. A number listed for Medhora was disconnected Monday.

There was no damage to the field or the facility.

In November 2006, two Carnegie Mellon University students were accused of trying to break into the stadium shortly after someone threatened to detonate radioactive “dirty bombs’’ at seven National Football League stadiums.

The students were initially jailed on $1 million bond as the case was turned over to a regional terrorism task force, but no such link was ever found. Both later entered a special probation program for first-time offenders that enabled their records to be expunged.